The nationwide egg shortage is now affecting food pantries in the D.C. area.
Leaders of the House of Mercy organization in Manassas, Virginia, told News4 sister station, Telemundo 44, on Friday they had to make adjustments due to the high price of buying eggs in bulk directly from suppliers.
"This is our walk-in fridge where we usually keep the eggs," Mayda Oporta, coordinator of House of Mercy, explained. "As you can see, we have a lot of empty spaces since the shortage is affecting us to the point that our shelves are empty."
Oporta said the organization previously gave each family a dozen eggs. Now, families receive half a dozen eggs.
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"The prices for medium-sized eggs ranged from $117 per box, each box has 15 dozen eggs, up to $126. Now, with that same budget, we can only give to 60 families per week," she said in Spanish.
The shortage is due to a crisis in the United States' poultry sector. Almost 150 million laying hens have been slaughtered since 2022 due to an outbreak of bird flu, and eggs are increasingly expensive and difficult to find.
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average price of a dozen eggs in the United States reached a record high of $4.95 last January.
This represents a problem for the organization that serves dozens of people in the region, 80% of whom are Hispanic.
Kenia Orellana and her seven children are among those who rely on the House of Mercy. She told Telemundo 44 that any help filling the refrigerator is crucial for her.
"For my family, since there are quite a lot of us, what they provide me here, I can save that money and use it for my children's school expenses or any other necessary things. And since the house provides it for me, I am saving on that in these difficult times," Orellana said in Spanish.
House of Mercy has been in operation since 2005 and provides services to people not only from Virginia but from other areas of the region regardless of their zip code or immigration status. Click here for details.
